The present invention relates to firearms, and particularly to a safety device for use in connection with repeating firearms utilizing box-like removable magazines.
Many repeating firearms utilize replaceable magazines which, when in place in such a firearm, exclude dust, sand, and the like from entering internal mechanisms and doing damage or causing failure of the firearm to operate properly. When the replaceable magazine is not in place in such a weapon, however, the loading mechanism and other movable parts of the weapon are exposed to contamination by material carried by the air or otherwise found in the immediate environment.
Some firearms, particularly automatic firearms such as the self-loading M-16 rifle used by the Armed Forces of the United States, have ejection ports through which empty cartridge cases are ejected upon firing of the weapon. Although the empty case ejection port in many self-loading weapons is another potential point of entry for contaminants into the working mechanisms of the weapon, the M-16 rifle is equipped with a hinge-mounted cover which may be closed to protect the internal mechanisms of the rifle against such contamination. Thus, the M-16 and similar rifles, when a magazine is in place and the ejection port cover is closed, are relatively well-protected against contamination.
Safety is of prime importance in conducting military training exercises. For the sake of safety, however, soldiers have been permitted to carry an M-16 or similar rifle during some military training exercises only with the magazine removed, the ejection port cover open, and the bolt withdrawn rearwardly to an open position exposing the breech of the firing chamber, so that it could be clearly seen that the weapon was unloaded and not able to be fired, either accidentally or otherwise.
While use of the M-16 in such training exercises was thereby made safe, the working mechamisms of the rifle were exposed to possible contamination. Particularly when these requirements for the sake of safety were carried out during exercises performed in desert sand conditions, the weapons were exposed to entry of contaminating materials which caused a significant number of the weapons to malfunction in later use, unless internal working mechamisms of the weapons were carefully cleaned first. Such cleaning takes an undesirably long time to ready such basic infantry weapons for service use after their use in training exercises.
It is necessary to be able to carry out infantry training exercises safely, but without excessive risk of damage to weapons, and without requiring an unduly long period of time to make weapons ready for actual use thereafter.
Not only is it desirable for weapons to be in a safe condition during military training exercises, but it is also desirable that such a safe condition should be easily and quickly verifiable from a distance of at least several meters, so that it is quickly obvious to a commander if any of his men's weapons have not been properly made safe.
While a weapon may be made safe by removal of an essential part such as a firing pin, such a procedure has two problems. First, it may be difficult to verify that the procedure has been actually carried out and that the weapon is no longer capable of being fired. Second, there is a risk that a part which has been removed from its proper location might be lost or damaged so that it would be difficult or impossible to restore the weapon to its normal useful condition.
Johnson U.S. Pat. No. 4,528,765 discloses an externally visible safety device which effectively meets the need stated above, except that it does not preclude the somewhat remote possibility that a cartridge might be located within the firing chamber of the weapon, ready to be discharged immediately, should the safety device be removed. What is needed then, is a device which will positively prevent a weapon, particularly an automatic-loading weapon such as a military rifle, from being fired accidentally, or from even having a round of ammunition located in its chamber, and which will make it easily verifiable visually, from a considerable distance away from the weapon, that the weapon is incapable of being fired, and that the weapon does not contain any ammunition. Such a device ideally should be straight-forward, inexpensive, and easy to use, should allow the weapon to be made safe without thereby exposing internal working parts to contamination, and should leave the weapon able to be made reliably ready for firing quickly and without disassembly or cleaning thereof.